The Inca Trail Part III - Machu Picchu

View of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate
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I MADE IT! I REALLY MADE IT! It’s still hard to believe that I actually completed the Inca trail. I don’t actually think that I have the words to describe this feeling of pride and gratefulness. One thing I do know is that it is an absolute confidence booster. Furthermore, as a reward, I now got to enjoy Machu Picchu knowing that I worked to get here and deserve to enjoy it.

Arriving at the Sun Gate on the fourth day at 6:15 in the morning, even though I was really upset with Isaac, I was still captivated by the view of Machu Picchu from above. It was breathtaking, beautiful and words do not suffice to do it justice. It truly deserves to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Now, from here, there was only a half an hour to go before entering the premises of this religious center for the Incas.

Karen and I looking around
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After a quick and steep drop we were at Machu Picchu, unbelievable. Aleks and Jan were in a hurry because they wanted to climb Wayna Picchu, which is the mountain that is just beside Machu Picchu. They only let 400 people do it per day and after the buses come in it’s usually difficult to get one of those spots. It’s about a 300 meter climb that is very steep, and seeing that we had just done three days of intense hiking I wasn’t very interested. Karen and I decided to stay and wander around by ourselves, and eventually to ditch Isaac and the 9 o’clock group tour.

Machu Picchu and in the background you can see Wayna Picchu
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After a short while we though that it might be a good idea to climb another mini-hill for about 10 minutes to get a better view of Machu Picchu. While going in that direction we passed by the entrance for Wayna Picchu and after a short pep-talk I convinced Karen that we should go for it. Why not? If we wanted to quit halfway there would be no one we knew to put us down for it.

Before we even started to go up we med Daphne from New York coming down. She was here alone and had been sick the day before. Seeing that she was very much afraid of heights she only went up a few minutes before coming back down again. Seeing how I was feeling very peppy, I convinced her to join us and try again. The three of us went up together and it was a good thing we had each other because no one wanted to let the others down. Within about an hour we made it up and surprised Aleks and Jan. The view was simply wonderful and unfortunately I don’t have any picture that does it justice.

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After getting down I felt terrible for missing Isaac`s tour. Hahaha… no I didn’t. It felt great. It wasn’t on purpose and now we had the chance to actually get a guide who would tell the truth. After a quick snack we found someone to give us a tour. He actually really, really good and furthermore, he didn’t have that stupid accent and say “super hikers, lets go” in that weird way.

Now we were set. Shortly after beginning the tour our guide asked us which company we were here with. We said that we were with SAS and he quickly said “with Isaac” in a questioning voice. I think that all of us were longing to tell him the truth but someone just said “yes”. Then he said in Isaac`s voice “come on super hikers”. We all immediately reacted and now even more wanted to make fun of Isaac. Just before anyone had a chance to say anything our guide said “yes, he’s my friend”. Filled with doubt as to how someone so knowledgeable and good could like that confused, lying and sneaky Isaac I do not know. But our day turned out to be great because we had a wonderful guide, who actually went 30 minutes overtime and didn’t charge us, he gave us good explanations and showed us almost everything there was to see. The only sad part is that now this adventure was over.